"Among European investors, of all countries the most respected place to invest besides their own countries is, believe it or not, the US."
Lots of very good reasons for this. Generally, all Anglo-Saxon countries (Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) have better, more realistic, and more transparent accounting than the Europeans. Considerably better protection for minority investors.
Look on Crossy's board for a discussion of the pending squeeze of minority investors (people like us here on SI) by a Norwegian company.
Switzerland and Nederlands come close with accouting, but many other countries let corporations deliberately obscure their numbers with various 'reserves' and other things.
A strong culture of shareholders / investors rights, as opposed to the state or labor having demands on enterprises, like in Germany.
US Corporations tend to be run more by professionals, not family members. Family intervention, like with Ford Motor, is the exception. In Europe, Paris Hilton would be running the hotel company....;-)
I expect many investors thinks that's kind of like choosing a President because his daddy was president.
The US does pick leaders with a wider range of social classes and nationalities. There are lots of CEOs from middle or working class backgrounds - Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Andy Grove. Class is still a huge factor, but not as much as Europe.
In France, it really helps if you are an ENArch, and attended the right school.
The Germans who run SAP are equivalent to the Oracle team, but where's the French or German equivlent of Steve Jobs ?
Any black CEOs in Europe ? Are they running anything like American Express, Merrill Lynch, or Time Warner ?
I guess they won't invent the Gold Card, like Ken Chenault at American Express did.
US management gets paid lots of money to deliver results - and this attracts talent from all over the world. CEOs who can't deliver get to leave. Larry Pressler of the Gap clothing store is out this week, Bill Ford at Ford got Mullay from Boeing to replace him.
If you are a crook, you may eventually end up in jail, like Bernie Ebbers of World Com, Kozlozski of Tyco, Jeff Skilling of Enron (24 years in high security), and the 70+ year old John Rigas, who cooked the books at Adelphia. Austalia and the UK also jail corporate crooks.
Martha Stewart did a minor infraction, equivalent to running a red lite, and gets federal prison. This builds investor confidence that the market is not 100% rigged.
I don't know about the Istanbul stock market.
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I think the US culture cares about money and business much more than most Europeans. Sort of the way the French and Italians care about food. |
